


Sleep, or the Lack of It

by shadowolfhunter



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Stress, the most appalling stressful annoying thing you can do is moving
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 19:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14677776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowolfhunter/pseuds/shadowolfhunter
Summary: Sean Renard has moved around a lot. Now every time he heads to bed, it feels wrong. The thread count of his sheets, the softness of his quilt, the support of his pillows and the bed itself, totally irrelevant. The damn thing seems cursed.He's alone in the world, apart from Diana. So. What to do?Enter the Housekeeper from another planet... or so she seems to Sean, but then he's too fascinated by her whimsical approach to his problem to stop now....





	1. Good Night's Sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JollyCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JollyCat/gifts), [Corvus_Aconitum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvus_Aconitum/gifts).



> Yup I know. Other stories. This one has been burning my buns for a while.

Sleep. It should be so easy, get into bed, just fall asleep. Awake refreshed the next day.

If only.

Sean eyes his bed with irritation. The damn thing seems cursed. He’s either being dragged from it by circumstances, or being woken by the force of his own nightmares.

He’s tired. Not that he’s going to admit that to anyone in a hurry. But he sees his face, well his human face, in the mirror every morning while he’s shaving, and he has to admit, to himself, that this cannot go on much longer.

His level of general physical exhaustion is a hair’s breadth away from making him a danger to himself, and everyone around him in the field. He’s not yet ready to ride a desk for the rest of eternity, and the debacle of his run for mayor means that his career is somewhat stalled anyway.

He’s moved twice in three years. And he’s not happy about that. The newest, posh house that he bought for his mayoral run feels out of step with his real, everyday life, like some kind of illusion. The old house is sold. His apartment where he so nearly came to permanent grief, and if he stares hard enough can still see the hairline scar where he came within seconds of losing his right eye to the knife wielded by the final conspirator in the Coins of Zakynthos case, well that’s long gone.

He studies the five brochures of possible places to buy, and doesn’t feel remotely inspired by any of them.

He’s smart enough to know he needs something new, something different from what he’s had before, nothing that suggests or reminds him of the last three extremely difficult years.

He just needs a good night’s sleep.


	2. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean finds a new home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be every house buying trope that I have ever personally been through and then some. There will be a lot of impulsiveness. I've earned this.

So. The teetering pile of house details grows exponentially, as he fails to find anything that strikes his fancy, and his realtors get increasingly desperate.

He’s strolling through the Pearl one day, on his way to his favourite coffee shop, head down as he muses between an apartment and another house from the latest offerings that his realtors have wished on him when he happens to glance up, and he sees it.

For a moment he just stands there. Transfixed. Seriously wondering what the hell is going through his head, because this is so far out of left field it’s in the forest behind the field.

It’s cheap. But then so it should be. From the pictures alone, he can tell it’s a fixer upper. And there’s a raging debate in his head as to whether the last few years have finally got to him because this makes no sense.

But somehow it does to him.

Sean Renard has always been a man of decision. Some of those decisions, he concedes have not been good ones. But this decision just feels right in his gut. He glances at his watch. He’s got plenty of time. He goes in the shop.

Half an hour later he’s standing in his potential new living room, feeling exhilarated and wondering if he really should be seeing a doctor, because this is insane. He walks over to the window. Pushes the curtain aside and peers out. There’s a veranda, which runs all the way round, well almost all the way round, he walks the room, noting the drab and dirty curtains, peeling paint, flyblown wallpaper, and the general level of unkempt. There’s a door to the left of the stairs, which he leaves alone for the moment, an archway to the right which leads to a galley kitchen which was probably out of date in the 80s, and beyond that, a door to a dining room.

He treads carefully up the stairs, There’s a bedroom to his right, and one to his left, and curiously a bathroom right in between. He opens the door, _well that’s got to change_ , the toilet faces the stairs.

He peers around at the dimly lit rooms, the old curtains shielding the finer details from his gaze, and mentally calculates exactly what he needs to do.

He walks back down the stairs to speak to the realtor. “I’ll take it.” He says. He has no idea why he says that, but it makes sense. He’s going to have to get rid of some things, he’s going to need smaller furniture, more in keeping with the space.

The realtor is looking startled. “I have a house to sell. Do I talk to you about that?” The startled look is replaced by a smile of something that looks like greed, but she’s an ordinary human. He turns to survey his new kingdom, the level of satisfaction is entirely out of proportion to the state of his new home, but it feels good for the first time in a very long time.


	3. Moving In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean buys the houseboat and sets about being his usual ruthless self.
> 
> Nick's feelings are hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "I'm buying it and moving in in two weeks" thing. Yeah, that absolutely can happen. If the property is vacant, and you are all over your agents, it is perfectly possible to move in a fortnight. Them dragging their feet... that's just time-wasting. Or in the case of the man who bought a house from me, a cover for the fact he didn't really have the money as he said he did, and was not (in fact) a cash buyer.

There were definite perks to being a Police Captain even if slightly tarnished, and relatively wealthy, even if three houses in less than three years had made a very substantial dent in his finances. “I want to move in in two weeks.” He gave the realtor his best stern expression.

She gawped at him and began to splutter. 

“I know it can be done. Do it.”

He had a purpose now.

Sean set about downsizing his life with a ruthlessness that startled even himself. He sold the furniture, all of it, including the bed, and all the bedding which he gave to Goodwill. He packed up his clothes, books and DVDs, plus his kitchen and dining ware.

Given the wary state of his relationships to Burkhardt, Griffin and Wu, he put off telling anyone about the move until it was his last Friday in his old house. Then it was just an official address change, not something he spread around the bullpen. 

After work, with his belongings mostly loaded into the back of his Tahoe, he headed off to his new place.

He had running water, electricity and that was just about it. A cleaning service had been sent in, the air was no longer thick with dust, but there was still a sad and abandoned feel to the place.

He unloaded his suitcases and boxes, and headed back into town. Three hours later he had an airbed to sleep on, a bedside table, two temporary wardrobes and a kitchen table and chairs.

He set about putting his new space to rights as far as he could, and by the time he had finished, it was almost 10pm.

The kitchen barely passed. The stove was ancient, the fridge scarcely less so, and the cupboards looked as though they required little encouragement to actually fall off the wall, Sean thought about food, and reached for his cell.

Pizza. He thought.

 

Nick chose the long route home that night, he couldn’t say why exactly, but something was nagging at him. It was only as he drove past the Captain’s house, and why he was driving past the Captain’s house was another little mystery that he really didn’t want to explore too closely, that he realised there was a realtor’s sign in the front, the house was dark and the Captain’s Tahoe nowhere in sight.

That prompted him to pull over and investigate just a little further.

Peering in a window, the house appeared completely empty. Sean had moved out.

Nick absolutely wasn’t going to admit that was a flash of real hurt that shot through him. Hurt that Sean Renard had failed to share that he was moving. No.

He got back in his truck and drove home, flickering between resentment and hurt the whole way, and pretending to himself that he didn’t care.

 

Bright and early Saturday morning, Sean was up and ready to go. He had a long shopping list, and a free weekend. He was not on call, and had made it clear that he simply wasn’t available should anyone decide that they wanted to contact him.

Several hours later he had selected the paints that he favoured, ordered a brand new bathroom suite, acquired a brand new barbeque, booked an appointment with a kitchen designer to come and measure up, three bookcases, a new television and its cabinet, curtains were ready to pick up, he’d pre-ordered those having taken the measurements himself and purchased the curtain rails to go with them, and he was back home with a brand new ladder, and tool kit working on putting up his first curtains.

He tackled the bedroom first, then the lounge and was unpacking the first bookcase when he thought to glance at his watch. It was almost dinner time and he hadn’t noticed. His kitchen and dining ware were still all boxed up, and frankly Sean declined to cook in that kitchen, it was falling apart.

Realising that ordered food was in his immediate future, and experiencing a curious reluctance to leave his new home, he picked up his cell to order in.


	4. Grumpy Grimm and Sleepless Sean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes are clueless. And quite possibly, annoying.

“You’re doing it again.” Hank doesn’t look up from the page he’s reading, and if his voice carries just a hint of weary exasperation he figures he’s justified.

Nick scowls, “no I am not.”

Hank spares his partner a glance. “Yes you are. I can hear your molars grinding.” He leaves the statement out there, he doesn’t even spare a significant glance at the closed office door. The blinds are drawn, as they increasingly are these days. The hostility is still covert, but Hank can detect wounded pride on both sides.

He sighs. He honestly thought they were all done with that. Nick and Renard on opposite sides, and truthfully, after all that Sean Renard had done, Hank had been happy to just leave it at that.

Until the Captain sold his house, and departed somewhere, and Nick had been driving himself crazy trying to find out where.

If Hank examined his own feelings on the matter, once the truth about Black Claw had come out, and having seen what Renard had done to get his daughter back, and witnessed Renard with Diana, especially when the aloof zauberbiest thought no one was looking, Hank found to his surprise that Diana was basically Renard’s whole world. The zauberbiest had thrown himself into loving his daughter, and pretty much anything or anybody was expendable in the Captain’s attempts to keep the girl safe.

It never needed to be like that, but… and Hank did have to be honest here, things between Nick and Renard had been souring since they had banished Jack, and then just cut Renard loose to find his own way. The zauberbiest had been made vulnerable, and then cut to fend for himself through the trauma of being possessed, Nick had been hysterical, suspicious and hostile towards him, blaming Renard for his mother’s death, not entirely without cause, but unfairly nonetheless. No wonder Renard had decided to cut his losses.

For his own sake, Hank had let go of the bitterness. He felt it was about time Nick did the same, but Nick’s suspicions were deep-rooted, and totally at odds with his physical attraction to his extremely hot Captain.

Hank may have been one hundred percent hetero, but he was neither blind, nor a fool. Nick had it bad for Sean Renard from day one. And Hank had been pretending for at least five years that it wasn’t clear that Renard had the same feelings.

Hank mentally rolled his eyes, looked up from his reading to catch Wu’s eye. The look on the Sergeant’s face spoke volumes, none of which Hank really cared to read. He knew them off by heart.

 

Wu glanced at the closed office door, the drawn blinds, and sent mental open sesame vibes in the general direction of both.

They remained stubbornly closed.

 

Nick gathered himself together. It had been weeks. Sean always came to pick Diana up, Nick had followed, several times, tried staking out the parking lot at the cinema, the playground, tried following, still blushing as he remembered Diana and ‘Daddy; waving cheerily as they went through the traffic lights passing Nick in the opposite lane.

Deep down inside, it hurt, like a sunuvabitch… It didn’t matter how much Nick told himself he hated Sean Renard for all that he had done, living with the daily evidence of Sean’s existence, witnessing the love that the zauberbiest showered on his daughter, didn’t matter how many years had now passed, Nick Burkhardt still had feelings for Sean Renard. Strong feelings that had weathered the years, almost ten, since Nick arrived in Portland PD, and made detective under Sean Renard’s command.

Alright, he might actually love the bastard. Nick ground his teeth.

Hank cleared his throat and scowled.

“Alright, alright..” 

“So… you’ll talk to him?”

Nick huffed, grumbling something under his breath.

“I didn’t hear that.”

“Yes. I said yes, okay.”

 

The bed was huge. And brand new. He had even chosen a different make from his last bed. New bed, new location, completely new bed linen the works.

Sean rolled over and punched the pillow for the third time.

It really didn’t help.

Unbidden an image flashed through his brain.

Dammit. With a snarl Sean sat up.

Milk… perhaps that would help. He climbed out of bed and padded his way down to the newly refurbished kitchen.

He added milk to a pan, which he set on the stove, reached into the back of a cupboard, noted with surprise the level left in the bottle, shrugged and added a glug to the pan. Turned the heat on. Stared at the thing for a moment, and added another generous glug to the concoction on the stove.

He was pretty sure that his mother’s recipe for a restful sleep really didn’t require a half bottle of finest Tortugan rum, but at this point in time, he was desperate. A cinnamon stick, a little chocolate…

 

The clanging in his head yanked him hard out of sleep, it taking a moment or two for him to get his bearings. He was face down, on top of his bed, his feet on the pillows, and the empty mug on the floor.

Unfortunately Sean Renard possessed the gift of perfect recall, especially when drunk off his ass. Although his recollections were a trifle jumbled, the image in his head of him making a fool of himself in front of a certain Grimm wouldn’t go away. It was, thankfully, only in his imagination, him going down on one knee and proposing to said Grimm. Right before the Grimm cut his head off with a very big sword.

A sword which Sean had vague memories of carrying himself.

He winced, then stuck his tongue out as far as it would go and squinted at the end of it.

He really couldn’t go on like this.


End file.
